Intel on Thursday demonstrated a new cooling process that could solve the increasing problem of hot outsides on notebooks. Similar to the process used for cooling the surface of a jet engine, the semiconductor giant has produced a laminar jet airflow system that actively pushes the hot air away from the bottom of the case, rendering it cool enough to sit on a lap without overheating the notebook owner's legs or having to rely on bulkier active cooling.

The laminar jet system is an official design and can be licensed by notebook manufacturers to include in their own products. Intel doesn't name customers but says the cooling system is crucial to future notebooks, which may run as hot or hotter than existing processors but are more likely to be thinner.

Intel has lately been emphasizing low power use for mainstream notebook processors, with multiple Core 2 Duo processors dropping from 35W to 25W of power without affecting their performance.